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女大不中留 Hobson's Choice (1954)

本片獲得1954年第4屆柏林電影節(jié)金熊獎。

電影講述一戶人家女兒對抗父親的故事。女主角是一個三十歲的大姑娘，她還有兩個妹妹，三人都在家族開得鞋店工作。這是因為死了老婆且嗜酒如命的父親吝嗇及懶惰，他不愿意讓家中的三個女兒出嫁。一天，一個貴婦人到店中詢問做鞋的工匠是誰，唯唯諾諾的男主角認(rèn)出是自己做的鞋。貴婦人就告訴男主角及店中所有人，男主角做的鞋是全城最好的。之后，女主角找到男主角，告訴他自己要與他成婚。男主角嚇呆了不敢答應(yīng)，但在女主角的勸服下明白了一切：男主角做的鞋最好，而女主角鞋賣得最好，兩人是最佳組合?？墒谴藭r男主角已經(jīng)有了婚約，女主角聽后馬上來到男主角未婚妻家取消了婚約。晚上，女主角告訴父親自己要嫁給一個鞋匠，父親很生氣。隔天父親就要鞭打男主角，女主角見到后馬上帶著男主角離家而去。兩人來到貴婦人處借下一筆錢，迅速開起一家鞋店，女主角還打算第二天結(jié)婚。第二天到了，女主角通過妹妹的情人知道父親因為喝醉掉入情人家的地窖中，于是女主角設(shè)下一計?；槎Y很快舉行完畢，兩個妹妹的情人都參加了。父親很快收到傳票，他因為私闖民宅而被指控，他找女兒尋求幫助。就這樣，女主角利用父親的心理，并在另一個妹妹情人——一個律師的幫助下，讓父親付了500元錢，這筆錢剛好夠兩個妹妹的嫁妝。就這樣，兩個妹妹很快嫁出去了。一段時間后，父親因為喝酒病重需要人照料，女主角讓妹妹兩人幫忙，但她們兩人都不同意。于是，預(yù)計有此結(jié)果的女主角提出照顧父親的條件：男女主角二人住回父親家，且兩人占有父親店一半的經(jīng)營權(quán)。父親起先不同意，但在男女主角兩人述說的事實面前他答應(yīng)了。最后，父親帶著男女主角兩人去找律師起草合同去了。

這部電影很傳統(tǒng)，是一部戲劇結(jié)構(gòu)明顯且笑點非常模式化的喜劇電影。電影劇情總體來說還是不錯，比較耐看，只是電影的主題太荒唐，而且劇情嚴(yán)重脫離現(xiàn)實，讓我很難接受。換句話說，本片故事已經(jīng)脫離時代，即使部分笑點可以讓人發(fā)笑，它也稱不上是佳作了。

本片之所以給我這種感覺，就是因為電影故事太假了！天底下哪有片中那樣的父親，吝嗇、貪財、懶惰、不疼愛子女，為了省錢連女兒出嫁的嫁妝都不肯出，真是“一毛不拔”??！即使文學(xué)作品中有這樣的父親，但它出現(xiàn)在電影中卻顯得那么不真實。此外，女主角這樣的女兒也是世間少有，她根本不愛自己的父親，只想著嫁人、只想著怎么獲得父親的財產(chǎn)，根本就不記掛父親的病情。綜合這幾點可以看出，本片是一部荒誕到超現(xiàn)實的喜劇，或許這就是神經(jīng)喜劇？總之，我不喜歡。

因此，本片只表達(dá)了這樣的主題：父親是可以騙的、男人是可以搶的、嫁人是天經(jīng)地義的！這都是什么??！

電影拍攝上同樣傳統(tǒng)，是非常古典的表現(xiàn)方式。比如音樂的適時渲染，主要依靠肢體語言的笑料，語速飛快的對白，等等?？催@樣的電影，又讓我想起四五十年代好萊塢黃金時期的黑白片了。只可惜，這是一部稱不上經(jīng)典的英國老電影。

本片演員非常出彩，尤其是父親扮演者Charles Laughton。Charles Laughton將父親這個吝嗇鬼演繹得惟妙惟肖，生動而形象，特別是他的肢體語言與念白，具有非常獨特的魅力，堪稱世界獨一無二。這個生于十九世紀(jì)的家伙實在太厲害了！片中其他幾位表現(xiàn)中規(guī)中矩，三個女人也不算漂亮，她們分別是Brenda De Banzie、Daphne Anderson、Prunella Scales。三人的詳細(xì)資料沒查，大概都沒有什么名氣吧。

總結(jié)一下。這是一部有些部分好笑的傳統(tǒng)喜劇，它已經(jīng)“傳統(tǒng)”到現(xiàn)代人不能理解了。不過Charles Laughton的表演實在精湛，神一樣的演出。

Brenda De Banzie

Daphne Anderson

Prunella Scales

序列：1045

女大不中留.Hobson's.Choice.1954.D9.MiniSD-TLF

2013-05-23

電影簡介:
一個「三張兼過?廟」的鞋鋪太子女何美娟，不甘心被老爹批死「蘇州過后無艇搭」，更加不想「揳灶罅」，決定主動出擊，尋找自己的「理想對象」，誓要扭轉(zhuǎn)「下半世住姑婆屋」的命運。第一步當(dāng)然是「搵老公」，于是美娟決定先出對頭，然后逼造鞋泰斗莫威出對尾，實行逼婚大行動。做了大半世免費勞工，美娟今云決定另起爐灶，一于與老爹對抗到底，于是略施小計，不但令老爹從此不得發(fā)威，兼且乖乖把財產(chǎn)雙手奉上；最后，還撮合了兩個妹玉娟和惠娟的終身大事，終于大功告成，大團(tuán)圓結(jié)局，所謂各得其所，皆大歡喜。

那句“By GUM”因為英語的時過境遷，顯得很好玩~~轉(zhuǎn)一個評論~

DAVID LEAN may not be known primarily for his comedies, but the two he made——1945's Blithe Spirit, based on the Noel Coward play, and then Hobson's choice in 1954——were exceptional, combining expertly timed broad humor with his always refined sense of Englishness. The gorgeous black-and-white Hobson's Choice is the more sublime of the two, ranking with the best Ealing Studio feathers of the period, well-known for their mirth and gentility. Yet it boasts a special distinction from the Ealing tradition, molded as it is by the sharp mind and artful hands of a meticulous cinematic visionary. By the time of Hobson's Choice, Lean was a proven master of storytelling, not through "perfectionism" but his exacting creation of mood, established by concentration on tempo, ambience, environment, and detailed behavior.

No Ealing or Gainsborough comedy surpasses the polished gleam of Hobson's Choice. Its brassy characters——blustery boot shop owner Henry Hobson(Charles Laughton), his stern eldest daughter, Maggie(Brenda De Banzie), and the timid shoemaker she marries, Will Mossop(John Mills)——are large-scare emblems of the British class system, representing its range of clashing types. Depicted with rousing vivacity, they inhabit an early twentieth-century setting that Lean conveys with his widely admired, signature sense of the real physical world; the polished-pewter beauty of Jack Hildyard's black-and-white photography gives even the cobblestone streets a tactile dimension.

Lean develop this hyperrealism as part of his cinematic character portraiture-----investigating British manners through archetypes that would be amusing and enlightening and, above all, as eminently recognizable as a Manchester street, an Edinburgh town house, a London flat. That was the gift of Lean's apprenticeship with playwright and theater titan Noel Coward. They worked together on the 1942 World War 2 film In Which We Serve, and also collaborated on the patriotic overview This Happy Breed(1944),a derivation of Coward's earlier British family epic Cavalcade(filmed by Frank Lloyd in 1933).The Lean-Coward films were not middlebrow jingoism; in each one, Lean showed an appreciation of how individual behavior----and the look of average lives----defines the national spirit. Theater suited Lean's preference for framing characters in a way that makes it possible to understand their existential circumstance and spiritual nature----best exemplified by his adaptations of Coward's plays, especially 1946's atmospheric Brief Encounter.

This scrutiny of British behavior was famously elaborated in Lean's Dickens adaptations Great Expectations and Oliver Twist----literary-cinema masterworks that combined imaginative folklore with classical British narrative tradition. Lean gave that tradition new life in Hobson's choice, based on theatrical warhorse by Harold Brighouse, first performed in the United States in 1915, perhaps as a caricature of Englishness. But Hobson's Choice was soon thereafter embraced by Britons, who approved Brighouse's farce as a genuine reflection of their own culture, habits, and humor. Lean responded to the play's vintage qualities, adapting it with the same inspiration he had Dickens----telling Henry, Maggie, and Will's story as imaginatively and as vividly as possible.

Staring with Malcolm Arnold's boisterous score, Hobson's Choice boasts an English music-hall spirit that connects this theatrical artifact to the popular realm of mass entertainment, but made sophisticated, as always with Lean. As a cinematic craftsman, Lean surely related to this story of skilled Manchester laborers whose personal drives pursue high standards of material quality, moral behavior, and social esteem. It is Lean's dramatic expertise and elegant workmanship that transform a crowd-pleasing formula of combative egos into a revelatory romance. The rousing and hilarious clash of wills----the father wrestles with his loss of authority, the daughter fights for her individuality, and the workman gains self-esteem and self-determination----preserves the midcentury concept of Britain as not only an empire but a land of articulate and ingenious authoritarians, legislators, and proud laborers: the British character idealized.

As in so many Lean films, the eccentricities displayed by Henry, Maggie, and Will are observed, revealed, and discovered to be timeless human attributes, as in classic British literature. Their comic actions recall the histrionic undercurrents that propel the Dickens melodramas. Laughton's bumptious patriarch mourns his waning authority when stern Maggie acts against her impending spinsterhood by setting her sights on Will. Already the functioning head of the family----taking the place of her deceased mother; even bossing around her two younger sisters----Maggie defies her father's oppression. "The dominion of one woman is paradise to the dominion of three," Henry complains to his cohorts at the Moonraker tavern. Lean favors each of Henry, Maggie, and Will's chosen prerogatives even as they are in hilarious conflict with one another. In the way, Lean satisfactorily enhances the Coward method, humanizing the most outrageous quirks of the British class system.

Henry drown his loss of control in drinking, Maggie effects her own emancipation, and Will gradually acquires his manhood and comes to social consciousness. Their development should be taken no less seriously than that of the protagonists of Lean's more famous dramatic films, since Lean applies the same fascination and affection here; this gives Hobson's Choice its comic strength. An examination of the empire's social manners and psychology is always at the core of Lean's narratives. When patriarchy's silly privileges(power and drink) go up against unstoppable forces of temperance, love, and early twentieth-century feminism, Hobson's Choice soars as a lampoon challenging the old order. Male tyranny is easily subverted through the functions of expert comic plotting. Henry may rant against the "rebellious females of this household," but Maggie's determination to have a man who loves her and a life of her own design becomes a viewer's delight.

One roots for Maggie, an underdog heroine whose virtues show in De Banzie's middle-aged figure and beaming, emotionally open face. The opposite of Ann Todd's emotionally secretive heroine in Lean's 1949 Madeleine, Maggie refuses to be subjugated; her liberation is the obverse of Madeleine's sexual, legalistic tragedy. The title Hobson's Choice comes from a familiar expression meaning lack of options; the play extends that meaning to Henry Hobson's inevitable giving in to his daughter's growing empowerment. Maggie doesn't acquiesce to her father's rule but acts on her own behalf. It is Henry who, ironically, has no choice and t accept the circumstances of Maggie and Will's marriage and business venture.

Maggie is one of Lean's strongest heroines; overwhelming the man in her world, she's force of nature like Katharine Hepburn's Susan in Bringing Up Baby. And Hobson's Choice is a similar no-choice romantic comedy. After the outrageous scene where Maggie confronts Will's lowly girlfriend and her virago mother, then permits Will to kiss her, the flabbergasted male can only submit; "It's like saying I agree to everything, a kiss is." The way Maggie, Will, and Henry anglicize the screwball comedy genre, pushing romantic determination into homegrown social upheaval, makes Hobson's Choice anything but lowbrow farce. Political truth lies inside its romantic premise. By marrying Will and starting a bootery to rival her father's own business, Maggie embodies the principles of British capitalism better than even her lackadaisical father. She insists, "Will Mossop is a good man, as meek and fine as I'm strong and hard."

In commiserating with Maggie's ambition and dynamism, Hobson's Choice has remained fresh----a bona fide portrait of British manners that's been relevant over decades of political change and comedic fashion. To contemporary viewers, Maggie may even suggest a proto----Margaret Thatcher entrepreneur. Maggie's drive toward privatization as she rescues Will from drudgery impresses on several levels. She tells him, "You're a business idea in the shape of a man." As they escape his dull marital prospects and his certainty of financial and spiritual impoverishment, Will exclaims, "It's like a happy dream!" This doesn't cast Lean as conservative----look how he provocatively stages Will's admission: the lovers are poised in a narrow archway, the sunlit background of housing projects and satanic mills suggesting their indeterminate future.

Images just that expressive and precise prove Lean's mastery; it's the personal touch----like Will's boot-making expertise----apparent in whatever genre he essays. Celebrated as a "perfectionist," Lean shows an exacting, superb craft in visualizing a scene, staging characters and situations to bring out larger meaning. The first, high-angle shot looking down on Will in his cellar workroom cuts off the top of his head as the camera moves in----but not too close. It matches the scene where Will is angrily summoned by Henry, who is viewed from a low angle----not too close but leaving Henry's head cut off as well. These compositions analyze the prospects of masculine authority and subjugation, both on the verge of change.

Lean's imagery always catches his actors' precision, and never more so than in this film. The camera tracks De Banzie's fastidious ardor; a close-up shows her first sign of affection when she excuses Will's semi-illiteracy: "It's the italics which makes it difficult for him." Laughton's Henry Hobson is an uproarious comic turn, from the moment he runs up a staircase with Lean's vertiginous angle conveying comical tipsiness to the singular midnight caprice when he drunkenly stalks the moon's reflection in the rain puddles. He evokes a Chaplin ballet, but he's actually an existential acrobat. Hobson's moods are larger-than-life theatrical, yet Lean's style makes them quintessentially cinematic. when he finally falls into a cellar, it's as if descending from the moon above. This phantasmagorical image is the link between Lean's professed fondness for Orson Welles's chiaroscuro and Laughton's fantastical The Night of the Hunter.

Folksy humor might conceal the rigor of Lean's formal artistry in Hobson's Choice, but the illustration of English social custom and sexual manners makes it as profoundly expressive as Lean's bigger movies. The opening pan of assorted shoe silhouettes, a range of family sizes, introduces the Hobson family turmoil. It then coheres with Maggie and Will's courtship, their gradual steps taken against neorealist backdrops of northern England's smokestacks and polluted rivers. Altogether, a typically Lean-rich vision of man in his environment. Through this story of thunderously, wondrously henpecked men and a determined woman's romantic zeal, Hobson's Choice depicts private and social revolution. As the bedroom door closes on Maggie and Will's wedding night, Lean transcends smirky innuendo; his slow pan left enlarges the tale, describing a house being put in order: No other romantic comedy has been more telling yet discreet.

       電影拍的很早，1954年，還是黑白的。出乎我意料的這竟是部喜劇，看來以后買碟必須把包裝袋打開詳細(xì)看看里面的介紹了。

       電影不但是黑白的，其他的也保留著老電影的風(fēng)格，要是看膩了現(xiàn)代重復(fù)的電影，看看這部換換口味，感覺還是很好的。恰到好處的配樂和戲劇式動作都令人看了之后反而感覺耳目一新。也許我們現(xiàn)在的電影太過于紀(jì)實，恰恰忘了電影也是一種舞臺表現(xiàn)形式。

       故事編的也很好，有點英式幽默的感覺，諷刺中見幽默，幽默時不忘諷刺，我想要是一句話總結(jié)這部電影的話，那就是這部電影很好的還原了一部很精彩的短篇小說 ，十分值得一看。